Dagelijks archief 8 juli 2013

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following July 7 statement from the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine sharply condemned the participation of Palestinian figures in meetings and conferences in the Knesset, saying that such meetings are unacceptable normalization with the Zionist occupation state and pose a real threat to the Palestinian cause.

Comrade Khalida Jarrar, member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP said that “normalization in all its forms with the occupation is unacceptable, a strike against the Palestinian cause, and crosses all red lines,” calling for these meetings to be cancelled, saying they are totally rejected by Palestinians. It was announced that a so-called “two-state solution conference” will take place in the Knesset on Monday, July 8, promoting the Oslo “peace process” on behalf of the Israeli Labor Party and aligned Zionist forces.

Jarrar noted the planned participation in particular of Ashraf al-Ajrami and Khalil Shikaki, saying that these meetings with the occupation must be stopped and that Ajrami and Shikaki must decline these invitations to go to the Knesset. She also urged the Palestinian people to respond to such meetings and all forms of normalization with the occupation.

BEIRUT — Egypt restricted the ability of Syrians to enter the country on Monday, with officials citing reports that a large number of Syrians were backing the Muslim Brotherhood, which is engaged in a bloody standoff over the military’s ouster of Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi.

The decision dealt a blow to Syria’s main Western-backed opposition group that is leading the fight against President Bashar Assad from its headquarters in Cairo.

Egyptian authorities began requiring Syrians to get visas before arriving in the country, according to officials and opposition figures, many of whom live in the Egyptian capital.

Veteran Syrian opposition figure Haitham Maleh said he was held up for several hours at the airport in Cairo Monday before he was allowed entry — an exception made only “after several political sides intervened with Egyptian authorities” on his behalf.

“This Egyptian decision is a reward to Bashar Assad for all the Syrians he has killed,” Maleh said from the Egyptian capital Monday night. Dozens of Syrian families with no money were denied entry, he said, and two planes carrying Syrians were returned to Syria and Lebanon, where they originated.

“I have been living in Egypt for two years. I have an apartment and I have a bank account in Egypt,” he said earlier from the Cairo airport.

Egyptian airport officials said the new measures followed reports that a large number of Syrians in Egypt were backing the Muslim Brotherhood and took part in violence after the ousting of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. The airport officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

In response, the Syrian National Coalition said it regretted any crimes committed by Syrian nationals in Egypt and said Syrians “must not be punished for individual criminal acts.”

In Syria’s conflict, which pits a rebel movement rife with Islamist groups against Assad’s regime, the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has played a large role in the attempts to create a leadership in exile. The organization is a weaker version of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood but is still considered the most politically organized Syrian opposition group.

The opposition has found itself on the defensive after a series of setbacks at the hands of Assad’s forces, which have been reinforced by Lebanese fighters from the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, the ruling Baath Party — which has been ruling Syria since 1963 and is seen largely as a front for the Assad family’s iron grip rule — replaced its aging leadership, including long-serving Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa, a close associate and longtime Assad loyalist.

Al-Sharaa, 73, is considered as a somewhat consensual figure and his name was floated by the Turks last year as a possible figure to lead a transitional administration to end the country’s civil war. Like the majority of Syrians, al-Sharaa is a Sunni. His removal from the Baath Party command may be a move by Assad to shore up al-Sharaa’s future chances as a potentially acceptable figure to both sides during a political transition.

Syria’s state-run television said the new Baath Party command, which is the party’s top decision-making body, was chosen during a meeting of the party’s central committee.

It published the names of 16 members of the new leadership, which included none of the party’s old leaders except Assad.

A senior Baath Party official, Fayez Sayegh, told The Associated press that the reshuffle — the first since 2005 — was mean to “pump in new blood” in the party.

The opposition and Washington dismissed the change.

“This is an attempt to improve the image of the regime,” senior SNC member Abdelbaset Sieda said. “But the decision-making group is the same and did not change.”

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. does not recognize Assad’s legitimacy. “We continue to ask him to step aside. But we know that we need to find a way to work with all parties to get back to the table,” she said.

Also Monday, the opposition figure appointed in March and tasked with forming an interim government to administer rebel-held areas resigned, citing his inability to form a government. “I have decided to step down for the general good of the Syrian revolution,” Ghassan Hitto said in a statement.

Other opposition members disliked Hitto’s perceived proximity to the Qatari-backed Muslim Brotherhood. He had been effectively sidelined since his appointment — a result of the rivalry between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are vying for influence among the Sunni-dominated Syrian opposition. Both countries have been prominent backers of forces struggling to oust Assad, but Qatar has recently taken a back seat.

A former Syrian political prisoner with close links to Saudi Arabia, Ahmad al-Jarba, was elected to lead the coalition Saturday.

Psaki said the U.S. welcomed his election.

“We hope to make progress together to prevent the total collapse of Syria into chaos and the rebuilding — push to rebuild the social fabric,” she said.

Violence also continued Monday.

Two car bombs exploded a few minutes apart in the predominantly Alawite and Christian neighborhood of Akrama in the central city of Homs, killing at least four people and wounding 40, according to the state-run news agency SANA. Activists confirmed the explosions but had no further details. Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but past car bombs and suicide attacks have been blamed on al-Qaida-linked militants who have joined the rebel movement.

Assad’s forces have launched a major offensive to retake Homs, a transport hub that sits between the capital, Damascus, and coastal areas overwhelmingly loyal to the regime. Rebels have held on to parts of the city they took more than a year ago but remain under siege.

Forces loyal to Assad have pummeled their way into the Khaldiyeh neighborhood with constant mortar fire and tank shelling, allowing them to gain control of eastern parts of the district, said Rami Abdul-Rahman of the British-based Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors clashes. He estimated government forces had seized 11 buildings in Khaldiyeh. Overall, he said the government now controls about 20 percent of the area.

A massive explosion last Thursday at a major Syrian weapons depot in Latakia, not far from the main port of Tartus, completely destroyed the facility and munitions stored there.

Tartus is Syria’s main port. It is largely controlled by the Russian military, and the route by which all weapons transported by sea would enter Syria. As such, any advanced Russian weaponry would enter via Tartous and might be stored in the Latakia depot.

Though the Free Syrian Army took immediate credit for the attack, it was not the responsible party.

A confidential Israeli source informs me that Israeli forces attacked the site. The target were components of Russia’s SA-300 anti-aircraft missile system which had been shipped by Russia to Tartus and stored in Latakia.

Israel and exerted tremendous pressure on Vladimir Putin to cancel its contract to supply the missile batteries to Syria, since once they were operational they would render Israeli aircraft more vulnerable to attack. Israel, of course, will countenance no front-line state having even defensive weapons which give it superiority over Israeli weapons systems. In response to Israeli entreaties, Russia’s leader refused to budge and recommitted to providing the weapons to Assad. Apparently, he’d begun to follow through on his promise with these first shipments.

This is Israel’s third attack inside Syria since January. It considerably escalates the conflict there since it is the first known attack by Israeli forces which destroyed Russian armaments. Though Putin was surely warned by Israel that this would happen if he went forward with the arms deal, actually attacking Russian munitions is an act to which Putin will not take kindly, to say the least.

Assad bragged publicly a month ago that the SA-300 deliveries had arrived. Turns out he was right. Perhaps he shouldn’t have shot his mouth off.

Israel’s Channel 10 aired a claim by Syria rebels that Israel attacked and Israel journalists tell their viewers that they know things they’re not allowed to tell. A clear indication of Israeli involvement. Haaretz reports that a Syrian army source called the explosion the result of a technical failure, which hardly seems credible.

My source further notes that the FSA coordinated with the IDF and launched a rocket attack on nearby government military installations in order to distract loyalist forces from the real target. But the rebels played no role in the attack on the munitions cache. Their claim of responsibility conveniently takes Israel off the hook (until people read this report) and lessens pressure or condemnation on Israel for its third major attack inside Syria since January.

It’s all the stranger that Haaretz’s Amos Harel, in writing about the incident would write this:

“Israel wasn’t mentioned in connection with Thursday’s incident in Latakia. It doesn’t intervene in events in Syria.”

Apparently, Israelis believe that “intervention” means invading the country with boots on the ground. When it sends its jet planes to bomb Syrian targets inside the country, that’s not considered intervention. This is further evidence of Israeli delusions and self-denial about their level of interference in the affairs of frontline Arab states. Such refusal to acknowledge Israel’s real role allows Israelis to believe falsely they’re innocent bystanders, sometimes even victims (!) in the affairs in the region.

How does Harel think Israel coordinated the FSA diversionary attack near Latakia? With smoke signals?

No, Israeli intelligence has created a tacit alliance with the rebels who serve Israel’s interests when Assad acts in ways Israel believes will harm it. Hezbollah’s role in the Qusayr fight may have caused alarm in the Israeli defense ministry, which may’ve seen this as further evidence of escalation inside Syria. If Israel could take Hezbollah down a peg or two after its victory taking the Syria town on Assad’s behalf, it would be eager to do so. In this sense, the Syrian civil war is a proxy battle between Israel and Hezbollah who are itching for their next direct confrontation (the last one being in 2006).

Israel launched a very similar raid several months ago on the Sudanese capital Khartoum, in which it destroyed a major government arms depot. It’s known that Iran ships its weapons to Hamas and Syria via ports on the Arabian Sea, from where they’re shipped via Sudan to points north. Again, Israel has sucked countries throughout the region into the vortex of its own conflict with the Palestinians. If this doesn’t prove that this conflict is a major destabilizing force in the region, nothing will.

The area attacked is in the Alawite heartland of northwestern Syria. As such, Assad would think of it as one of his most secure bastions. Violating it as Israel has done would be meant to show Assad that he has no sanctuary from which to hide and serve as a psychological blow. At least, Israel would hope to convey such a message.

Haaretz’s Hebrew edition reports that Israel may’ve chosen this time to attack because the attention of the international media was focussed on the Egyptian coup, which served as a convenient distraction.

Another factor to keep in mind is that the recent assistance that Hezbollah offered to Assad in sending 4,000 fighters to subdue the strategic town of Qusayr would come with a price. Hezbollah would not be shy is extracting its share of the bargain, which would certainly involve transshipment of advanced Iranian or Russian weaponry via Syria to Lebanon, where the Lebanese militia would use it against Israel in any future military confrontation.

Another possibility is that Russia, which recently confirmed that it would honor its contract with Assad calling for delivery of the SA-300 anti-aircraft system. It’s possible Russia had begun shipping components of these missile batteries to Assad.

This site speculates that Israel used cruise missiles launched from its German-built Dolphin submarines to destroy the complex. If true, it would mean that German built advanced armaments were being used by Israel in a pre-emptive attack violating the territorial sovereignty of another Mideast country. Though Israel could just as easily have used its own air force to do the job.

Coffee

About 1,600,000,000 cups of coffee are consumed every day around the world. Billions of people rely on it as part of their daily routines. And yet, very few people are aware of the Muslim origins of this ubiquitous drink.

According to the historical record, in the 1400s coffee became a very popular drink among Muslims in Yemen, in the southern Arabian Peninsula. Legend goes that a shepherd (some say in Yemen, some say in Ethiopia) noticed that his goats became very energetic and jumpy when they ate beans from a particular tree. He had the courage to try them himself, noticing they gave him an energy boost. Over time, the tradition of roasting the beans and immersing them in water to create a sour yet powerful drink developed, and thus, coffee was born.

Roasted coffee beans

Regardless of whether or not the story of the shepherd ever really happened, coffee found its way from the highlands of Yemen to the rest of the Ottoman Empire, the premier Muslim empire of the 15th century. Coffeehouses specializing in the new drink began to spring up in all the major cities of the Muslim world: Cairo, Istanbul, Damascus, Baghdad. From the Muslim world, the drink found its way into Europe through the great merchant city of Venice. Although it was at first denounced as the “Muslim drink” by Catholic authorities, coffee became a part of European culture. The coffeehouses of the 1600s was where philosophers met and discussed issues such as the rights of man, the role of government, and democracy. These discussions over coffee spawned what became the Enlightenment, one of the most powerful intellectual movements of the modern world.

From a Yemeni/Ethiopian shepherd to shaping European political thought to over 1 billion cups per day, this Muslim innovation is one of the most important inventions of human history.

Algebra

While many secondary school students struggling through math classes may not particularly appreciate the importance of algebra, it is one of the most important contributions of the Muslim Golden Age to the modern world. It was developed by the great scientist and mathematician, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khawarizmi, who lived from 780 to 850 in Persia and Iraq.

The title page of al-Khawarizmi’s book

In his monumental book, Al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wa-l-muqābala (English: The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing), he set forth the basic principles of algebraic equations. The name of the book itself contains the word “al-jabr”, meaning “completion”, from which the Latin word algebra is derived. In the book, al-Khawarizmi explains how to use algebraic equations with unknown variables to solve real-world problems such as zakat calculation and inheritance division. A unique aspect of his reasoning for developing algebra is the desire to make calculations mandated by Islamic law easier to complete in a world without calculators and computers.

Al-Khawarizimi’s books were translated into Latin in Europe in the 1000s and 1100s, where he was known as Algoritmi (the word algorithm is based on his name and his mathematical works). Without his work in developing algebra, modern practical applications of math, such as engineering, would not be possible. His works were used as math textbooks in European universities for hundreds of years after his death.

Degree-Granting Universities

Speaking of universities, that is also an invention made possible by the Muslim world. Early on in Islamic history, mosques doubled as schools. The same people who led prayers would teach groups of students about Islamic sciences such as Quran, fiqh (jurisprudence), and hadith. As the Muslim world grew however, there needed to be formal institutions, known as madrasas, dedicated to the education of students.

The University of Karaouine in Fes

The first formal madrasa was al-Karaouine, founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri in Fes, Morocco. Her school attracted some of the leading scholars of North Africa, as well as the land’s brightest students. At al-Karaouine, students were taught by teachers for a number of years in a variety of subjects ranging from secular to religious sciences. At the end of the program, if the teachers deemed their students qualified, they would grant them a certificate known as an ijaza, which recognizes that the student understood the material and is now qualified to teach it.

These first degree-granting educational institutes quickly spread throughout the Muslim world. Al-Azhar University was founded in Cairo in 970, and in the 1000s, the Seljuks established dozens of madrasas throughout the Middle East. The concept of institutes that grant certificates of completion (degrees) spread into Europe through Muslim Spain, where European students would travel to study. The Universities of Bologna in Italy and Oxford in England were founded in the 11th and 12th centuries and continued the Muslim tradition of granting degrees to students who deserved them, and using it as a judge of a person’s qualifications in a particular subject.

An Ottoman mehter band

Marching Bands

Many students who attended high schools and universities in the Western world are familiar with the marching band. Made up of a group of a few hundred musicians, a band marches onto a field during an sporting event to entertain the audience and cheer on the players. These school marching bands developed from the use of marching military bands during the Gunpowder Age in Europe that were designed to encourage soldiers during battle. This tradition has its origins in the Ottoman mehter bands of the 1300s that helped make the Ottoman army one of the most powerful in the world.

As part of the elite Janissary corps of the Ottoman Empire, the mehter band’s purpose was to play loud music that would frighten enemies and encourage allies. Using enormous drums and clashing cymbals, the sounds created by a mehter band could stretch for miles. During the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans throughout the 14th -16th centuries, mehter bands accompanied the fearsome Ottoman armies, who seemed almost invincible even in the face of huge European alliances.

Eventually, Christian Europe also caught on to the use of military bands to frighten enemies. Legend has it that after the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, the retreating Ottoman army left behind dozens of musical instruments, which the Austrians collected, studied, and put to their own use. Armies all over Europe soon began implementing marching military bands, revolutionizing the way war was fought in Europe for centuries.

Cameras

It’s hard to imagine a world without photography. Billion dollar companies like Instagram and Canon are based on the idea of capturing light from a scene, creating an image from it, and reproducing that image. But doing so is impossible without the trailblazing work of the 11th century Muslim scientist, Ibn al-Haytham, who developed the field of optics and described how the first cameras work.

The basic principle of a pinhole camera

Working in the imperial city of Cairo in the early 1000s, Ibn al-Haytham was one of the greatest scientists of all time. To regulate scientific advancements, he developed the scientific method, the basic process by which all scientific research is conducted. When he was put under house arrest by the Fatimid ruler al-Hakim, he had the time and ability to study how light works. His research partially focused on how the pinhole camera worked. Ibn al-Haytham was the first scientist to realize that when a tiny hole is put onto the side of a lightproof box, rays of light from the outside are projected through that pinhole into the box and onto the back wall of it. He realized that the smaller the pinhole (aperture), the sharper the image quality, giving him the ability to build cameras that were incredibly accurate and sharp when capturing an image.

Ibn al-Haytham’s discoveries regarding cameras and how to project and capture images led to the modern development of cameras around the same concepts. Without his research into how light travels through apertures and is projected by them, the modern mechanisms inside everyone’s cameras would not exist.

“The Israeli regime maintains a defiant stand on the issue of its illegal settlements on Palestinian land as it refuses to freeze settlement expansion. Tel Aviv has come under repeated and widespread international condemnation over the issue.”

Israeli settlers have beaten several Palestinian farmers in the town of Huwara in occupied West Bank, Press TVreports.

They were attacked while. Our correspondent Nel Burdon went to the scene to see what exactly happened.

The Monday assault came after over 50 Israeli settlers entered the Palestinian farmers lands in the town located in the Nablus Governorate of the northern West Bank.

The Israeli settlers also stole 300 sheep from the farmers and attempted to bring them back to their illegal settlements, according to a Press TV correspondent in Huwara.

Hours after the attack Israeli forces prevented several Palestinian farmers from working on their fields and ordered them to get Israeli permits before they could re-enter their land.

Farmers from Nablus say they have permits to harvest their olive gardens only two days in a week during olive harvesting season which remains their main source of annual income.

In recent years, Israeli settlers in the West Bank have often assaulted Palestinians and vandalized their property. However, the Tel Aviv regime rarely detains the assailants.

The Israeli regime maintains a defiant stand on the issue of its illegal settlements on Palestinian land as it refuses to freeze settlement expansion. Tel Aviv has come under repeated and widespread international condemnation over the issue.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Masked demonstrators affiliated to a new group calling itself “Tamarod” marched through Ramallah on Monday calling for a third intifada.

Male and female protesters rallied through Ramallah’s streets, chanting that a third intifada, or uprising, would restore the dignity of the Palestinian cause.

They called on Palestinian factions to resume military activities and to unite in resistance against Israel’s occupation.

“Military action is the shortest route to end occupation,” they chanted.

The protesters say they are part of a group “Tamarod,” Arabic for rebellion.

“If you want a third intifada to break, you have to rebel against the Palestinian reality which the current leadership brought due to their disputes and different trends,” the group wrote on its Facebook page.

It is not clear if the group has any affiliation to the Egyptian Tamarod movement, a grassroots campaign which called the protests leading to the army’s ouster of President Mohamed Mursi on Wednesday.

On Sunday afternoon, the Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit, west of Bethlehem, pumped thousands of gallons of sewage wastewater onto Palestinian farmland, destroying the crops and rendering the land unusable.

Farmer in Wadi Fukin looks toward settlement of Beitar Illit

The area impacted is over one hundred acres of farmland in Wadi Fukin village.

The village council issued a statement calling on the Palestinian and Israeli authorities to act to do something about the constant harassment by the Israeli settlers in Beitar Illit settlement, and the periodic dumping of sewage onto village land.

The sewage wastewater dumping on Sunday affected the lands of around fifty local farmers, whose livelihoods depend on the farmland in question.

Israeli authorities have not responded to the request that they take action to stop the illegal dumping, and hold those responsible to account.

In the past, illegal dumping and seizure of the land of Wadi Fukin has been met by silence from the Israeli authorities.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday said the solidarity of the brotherly people of Algeria with the Syrian people confirms the depth of the Arab national awareness, adding that “the Arab national identity was and will remain the refuge and invincible fortress that saves our peoples and stability.”

Meeting an Algerian popular delegation comprising political, academic and media figures, Assad expressed Syria’s appreciation for the stances of the Algerian people. The Syrian President voiced confidence that the country of one million martyrs known for a long history of struggle against colonialism and confronting extremism and terrorism will continue, side by side with Syria to defend the Arab noble values and dignity.

Talks during the meeting dealt with the developments in the Arab arena and the deep relations binding the two peoples of Syria and Algeria, according to SANA.

The delegation members hailed the Syrian people’s steadfastness in confronting foreign schemes that target Syria’s role in the region, affirming support to Syria for foiling these schemes.

They also expressed confidence in Syria’s victory over the forces of extremism and terrorism and their supporters, stressing that these forces, which are using religion for political aims, will not deflect the Arab peoples from their just causes.